My kids’ elementary school is a dusty pile of rubble. That’s progress, I guess.

A new elementary school is set to open this month in my end of Annapolis. It’s a yellow brick road to better education, I suppose. This $39 million edifice replaces old Hillsmere Elementary, a red-brick monument to ideas about education that are fading away in Maryland. When it opened in 1967, students stayed put in their seats, facing straight ahead to chalkboards and teachers’ desks.